Ray Chen Classical Concert Listings

Program: Julia Perry: A Short Piece for Orchestra; Teddy Abrams: Seasons of America; Charles Ives: Three Places in New England; George Gershwin: An American in Paris Performers: Los Angeles Philharmonic; Teddy Abrams (conductor); Ray Chen (violin) Composer/conductor Teddy Abrams, “a maestro of the people” ( The New York Times ) and violin virtuoso Ray Chen survey more than a century of American symphonic music, from Charles Ives’ early 20th-century depiction of his native New England to the world premiere of Abrams contemporary stateside take on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons . The Grammy-winning Abrams wrote the Seasons of America specifically for Chen, who’s known for “both his ability to spin out huge musical lines of thought and the strong-boned, penetrating, caramel-toned passion of his sound” ( Gramophone ). Julia Perry ingeniously condensed the breadth of the orchestral palette into less than 10 minutes in her Short Piece for Orchestra , which kicks off the program, and George Gershwin’s “rhapsodic ballet,” An American in Paris , closes with the energy and coquettishness of a visit to the “City of Light.”